Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[RGC]

Thanks for summing up my existence.

[neorichieb1971]

I was watching TV yesterday and I decided to pick a game to play.. whilst looking at the games I picked one, turned around my TV was dead.

It was a 2008 model in my game room. Now I need not only a TV, but some equipment that can upscale via analogue inputs to HDMI since no TV's have those inputs anymore.

Didn't even pop, smoke or anything.. just went dead. Oh well, RIP my 16 year old Bravia.

[RGC]

Checked the fuse?

[TransatlanticFoe]

Didn't even pop, smoke or anything.. just went dead. Oh well, RIP my 16 year old Bravia.

I mean this is definitely a good thing, no-one needs to deal with a big telly going out in a blaze of glory! It is worth checking the fuse, though I'd not get too optimistic - don't think I've had a fuse go innocently since the 80s.

Worth checking the 2nd hand market, you'd be amazed how people toss out perfectly functional stuff just because something fancier comes along. LG from that period seem pretty robust.

[neorichieb1971]

When the microwave unevenly heats your food.

[RGC]

Reminds me of back when recycling at refuse centres became a thing. I took a perfectly serviceable Sony 21" CRT to my local "tip", thinking this would be an easy way to get it to a new home. In hindsight I should have taken it to BHF or some other charity who accepts electricals. Wrestled it out the car and lugged it with care toward the recycle section. A butch looking refuse assistant met me half way and helpfully relieved me of the burden. Before I'd had a chance to say, "it still works", he unceremoniously threw it in a nearby skip. And I mean threw -- like it was some kind of Olympic event.

Well, it had worked!

[neorichieb1971]

Reminds me of back when recycling at refuse centres became a thing. I took a perfectly serviceable Sony 21" CRT to my local "tip", thinking this would be an easy way to get it to a new home. In hindsight I should have taken it to BHF or some other charity who accepts electricals. Wrestled it out the car and lugged it with care toward the recycle section. A butch looking refuse assistant met me half way and helpfully relieved me of the burden. Before I'd had a chance to say, "it still works", he unceremoniously threw it in a nearby skip. And I mean threw -- like it was some kind of Olympic event.

Well, it had worked!

Reminds me of when I took a perfect Sony CRT to the recycle center because it had a purple screen, only to find out when I used the same scart cable on another TV it also showed purple. That wasn't long ago either, maybe 18 months ago. It looked brand new as well, a nice 14" Sony. The CRT I had before that went up in a plume of smoke and sissing noises.

Always question yourself when going to recycle centers.

[RGC]

Ouch! But at least it might have been rehomed (depending on whether recycling here means stripping for sellable materials). At my local place they put things up for sale if they're able to confirm them working. I think there's a bit more recognition of the value of "retrogaming TVs" these days too, so it might have survived. If it's sitting in someone else's room with an engine hooked up to it, I'd say there are worse outcomes. Not like my poor Sony that got shot-putted.

[neorichieb1971]

Tv's that always have HDMI on the left. When all my gear is positioned to the right.

You would think you could choose which side the inputs are on. FFS.

[Daytime Waitress]

Not like my poor Sony that got shot-putted.

Sorry that your gear got treated like shit, but Trinitron-lobbing should definitely classify as an Olympic event

[Lander]

When they shoot for Harryhausen, but land in flipbook instead.

[XoPachi]

I talked to an artist recently who said he hates getting comments on his work because just wants his audience to "shut up and sub to his Patreon".
Something about that bothers me. Maybe it shouldn't.

[Lander]

Eh, it's not exactly an earnest lookout. One could say it boils down to Caveat Emptor, if taking a similarly cynical view from the position of a prospective sub.

Though I prefer the soft and fuzzy idea that running a Patreon or similar project involves actually interfacing with the people who like your stuff, building a community around that shared interest, and so on - to make it worth their while beyond simple product-out-money-in. Their thoughts might not always be on the mark, but that's an occupational hazard of creation.

Hard work, mind. I did something like that with a game engine plugin once, but fell out of love with the underlying tech and ended up too exhausted from wrestling with it to be the guy. It'd likely be dead and irrelevant if not for motivated community members stepping up to continue the fight, and I doubt those would have been present were "sub, bitches" the M.O.!

[vol.2]

Wii Sports Baseball is a cheating pile of crap. There's like nothing you can do to pitch a good game; the only thing left up to you is hitting, and most of the time the outfield catches it. The only winning strategy is to hit home runs every time

I talked to an artist recently who said he hates getting comments on his work because just wants his audience to "shut up and sub to his Patreon".
Something about that bothers me. Maybe it shouldn't.

It because capitalism is skeezy and horrible and it turns artists into money grubbing monsters when they should be free to just be creative and make beauty.

[XoPachi]

I feel like you could want money and also not have such...contempt for the audience that isn't paying you.
Especially since he makes around 30k off his work as it is and that's not even his main job.

[vol.2]

I feel like you could want money and also not have such...contempt for the your audience that isn't paying you.
Especially since he makes around 30k off his work as it is and that's not even his main job.

Maybe. 30k isn't enough to live off of, so also maybe what that says is he is forced to work a whole second job to feed himself because it's impossible for almost any artist to actually make a living off the job they actually want to be doing.

That shit can get frustrating, and it comes out in various ways.

In all honesty, I understand what you mean, because you've seen an ugly side of this person, and that can be difficult. I would hope that I wouldn't make such a comment publicly either, but some people don't have good "filters" and chances are this was "blowing off steam" and not "I'm a shitty person who hates art and just wants your money." Although who knows? Maybe he is a shitty person. I worked in art a long time and I found that artists can be shitty people too, but a lot of times they are just hating life because they can't live off what they spent so much time learning how to do.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I feel like you could want money and also not have such...contempt for the audience that isn't paying you.

There's a huge number of artists who want to be able to produce artistic works who are also introverted and antisocial and will naturally not want to bother much with the general public. It's gotta be tough for a small artist having to play the popularity game and build up an audience. Unless you're hoping to become a classical artist who only gets famous years after they've died.

[Lander]

30k is a considerable bit of wedge, I'd be seriously chuffed to see that kind of income from my hobby.

Is he a hentai artist or something? Because in that case, I could totally see wanting to keep your audience at barge-pole length

[spmbx]

Customer service chatbots with an artificial "typing..." delay in every response make me more enraged than they should

[Lander]

That new AI assistant thing baked into the top of every google search. Untold millions in funding, and they've essentially reimplemented the Wikipedia overview pane with more points of failure.

Customer service chatbots with an artificial "typing..." delay in every response make me more enraged than they should

Working as intended, within error margin of one letter

[neorichieb1971]

I talked to an artist recently who said he hates getting comments on his work because just wants his audience to "shut up and sub to his Patreon".
Something about that bothers me. Maybe it shouldn't.

2 ways to look at this. His audience are not his friends and his job is to provide content. On the flip side the wording used could be better.

There is a guy I watch sometimes called "Tooty" on youtube and last night he uploaded a video about such things. It was a long video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekiRDC8AJio

He was drinking whilst making this video and he does speak his mind. He touched on quite a bit that I found interesting and some other bits I found a bit disturbing. If you are making a living off people giving you money, and exposing your content to others who are not paying, you should still be nice about it. It seems that the content providers don't like that only a small fraction are paying.

[vol.2]

If you are making a living off people giving you money, and exposing your content to others who are not paying, you should still be nice about it. It seems that the content providers don't like that only a small fraction are paying.

I'm not sure what way the "artist" is "exposing his content to other who are not paying" exactly, but if it's platform-based, then I agree, but I also think it's a really bad system.

It's similar to the way tipping works in the US in that it's taking the financial responsibility for paying the workers away from the business owners and putting it on the consumers.

If you take YouTube for example, it was never intended to be a full time job for people, so the system isn't really set up to pay the bills for people outside of whatever few bona fide superstars there are drawing the largest number of people into the platform. Then you get all of these smaller level channels that are never going to have more than 1 million or so subs who are nonetheless putting out great content but not getting paid an equal amount by YouTube.

Many of them decided to make the leap to full time YouTuber based on the number of Patreons or channel supporters they have, and that keeps them afloat. It makes sense that they would feel indignant about the many people who aren't paying them for their videos directly, but that's just the nature of the platform. I donate a little bit to some of the channels I watch, but I could never afford to pay out monthly to every channel I watch. So does that mean I should unsubscribe? No, they wouldn't want that either as every extra view and every extra comment helps their bottom line on the platform with engagement, which expands them in search results and draws in more viewers and potential Patreons.

I don't see how immediately the content creation and fair payment for work can be solved though. I think it's mostly a result of the way our economy works and direct reflection of Capitalism. It's not impossible to make a lot of money doing what you want to do, but only a small percentage of people will ever be able to achieve that because there are a limited number of eyeballs to be receptive to their work, and the platform is purposefully set up in such a way that it pushes the people who are already at the top of the heap higher.

[neorichieb1971]

If you are making a living off people giving you money, and exposing your content to others who are not paying, you should still be nice about it. It seems that the content providers don't like that only a small fraction are paying.

I'm not sure what way the "artist" is "exposing his content to other who are not paying" exactly, but if it's platform-based, then I agree, but I also think it's a really bad system.

It's similar to the way tipping works in the US in that it's taking the financial responsibility for paying the workers away from the business owners and putting it on the consumers.

If you take YouTube for example, it was never intended to be a full time job for people, so the system isn't really set up to pay the bills for people outside of whatever few bona fide superstars there are drawing the largest number of people into the platform. Then you get all of these smaller level channels that are never going to have more than 1 million or so subs who are nonetheless putting out great content but not getting paid an equal amount by YouTube.

Many of them decided to make the leap to full time YouTuber based on the number of Patreons or channel supporters they have, and that keeps them afloat. It makes sense that they would feel indignant about the many people who aren't paying them for their videos directly, but that's just the nature of the platform. I donate a little bit to some of the channels I watch, but I could never afford to pay out monthly to every channel I watch. So does that mean I should unsubscribe? No, they wouldn't want that either as every extra view and every extra comment helps their bottom line on the platform with engagement, which expands them in search results and draws in more viewers and potential Patreons.

I don't see how immediately the content creation and fair payment for work can be solved though. I think it's mostly a result of the way our economy works and direct reflection of Capitalism. It's not impossible to make a lot of money doing what you want to do, but only a small percentage of people will ever be able to achieve that because there are a limited number of eyeballs to be receptive to their work, and the platform is purposefully set up in such a way that it pushes the people who are already at the top of the heap higher.

I'm not exposed to what has been going on behind the curtain. From what I heard the model of youtube monetization in the beginning was very fruitful, then youtube pulled the plug and lowered the %. I have a ton of issues with youtube as a model but little to what has been said so far. My issue is with watchalong of other peoples videos, especially Americans who watch British artists who are getting paid for simply pausing the video in question, making a comment then unpausing it. Because the royalities as far as I know only go to the watchalong crew, not the original artist.

As far as the monetization part of youtube goes, for me its the artists choice to make content and its their choice to ask for more money from the subs via patreon, go fund me or whatever else there is out there.

As a creator, I could not ask for money. I'd prefer it if the journey to gaming journalism from youtube took you to greater heights in journalism, rather than having to ask subscribers to pay more for content. I have a moral issue with that. I also agree that once you start in youtube and you make a job out of it, where does the unlimited content come from? Especially in retro because there is a finite amount of stuff you can do. Sure you fabricate a journey to thrift stores and trading stores to get deals but for me that only benefits the content artist, nobody else. If I made content it would be informational that anyone interested could benefit from (or at least mix it in with the other stuff). Most of what goes on in youtube is a lie from the channels I watch. Folk pretending to play 300 games a month they have bought when I know from personal experience that editing, doing your full time job takes up 99% of that time, you'd have no time left to play anything. In other words, its all a facade. I only watch for the personality, if I don't like the person I don't want to hear what they have to say.

One reason I don't make a channel myself is because its a way of life. I've dabbled in it, got 1200 subs or so. Once you get into the world of creating content, I imagine it becomes a drug. At least for me.

Its all interesting though. Especially how one youtube maestro is critizicing others practices. I cannot imagine myself funding anyone on youtube, because as youtube is so big there are others who are doing it for free.

[vol.2]

As a creator, I could not ask for money. I'd prefer it if the journey to gaming journalism from youtube took you to greater heights in journalism, rather than having to ask subscribers to pay more for content. I have a moral issue with that.

I agree that YouTube, in general, works best as a platform for hobbyists sharing their hobbies with the world, and I can't see a future in which I would ever become a beggar on YouTube to support my own hobby.

My own niche lies not in gaming, but it the repair of vintage electronics and vehicles. There is some overlap in vintage gaming equipment and monitors, but that's it. Many of the best content creators do have Patreons or something, but they have varying approaches to how they handle it. Most of them I would say just have a Patreon, but they do not push it outside of mentioning that it exists if you feel like supporting the channel.

Even in those situations though, I wonder how they feel about getting so much support from various people they do not know to share their hobby online. I wouldn't feel right about it, and would even feel weird about people randomly mailing me stuff to unpack during episodes.

But where I always get stuck is that YouTube is really the only viable option for people who want to pursue creating video content as a career in that way, and it doesn't have a fair or well nuanced monetization model. People do it simply because it looks the only path forward

Classic Game Room I think is a good example of that, where he tried to take the channel off YouTube (at the point the monetization model was drastically changed) and he failed. YouTube basically has people over a barrel and they know it and they're squeezing people. I don't feel good about that either.

[orange808]

Caroline Ellison's ridiculous two year sentence for stealing $11 billion bugs me. She says she is sorry and claims to take responsibility, but she follows it up with womansplaining: blaming the bad man. Rolling over on everyone is nothing more than calculated self preservation. That's not real remorse. She didn't immediately quit and go to law enforcement as a whistleblower. That's what an innocent person does. I don't give a fuck about her feelings. No, fat round boy isn't scary. Tell me another one.

Ellison rolled over on her friends when she discovered: she wasn't going to get away with it. She knew she stole too much. She knew she was fucked. That's when she turned--and it wasn't because she's an angel or a victim.

She's smart and calculating--just like her boyfriend. I'm fine with knocking her sentence in half. Give her 150 months (12 1/2 years). That's half. That would be fair.

She stole $11 billion and realized she wasn't going to get away with it. That's her entire story. It's nice that she made the investigation easy. She's still guilty and she deserves a very long jail sentence. Even when the fraudster lady (blood test lady) is the CEO, it's still the bad man's fault. I'm tired of this. Make it fair.

I'm over it. Justice should be blind. Lock up the fucking grifters. Save the sexy parts story for someone that cares. You did the grift, now do the fucking time. Don't care what's in your pants. Don't want to go to jail? Don't do the grift.

Two years for $11 billion? If I stole that much, there's nothing I could ever do to get a small two year sentence. This is bollocks.

If you're triggered and have a feminist reply. I have a three word preemptive strike. "white women's tears". Choose your words carefully. Good luck with your retort.

[Mortificator]

Digital recolors of comic books. This is the comics version of remastering a film while taking out all the grain, or re-releasing an old game and filtering it all to hell, but worse. Newsprint has a texture to it, and when you lose that and slather on flat brights you get...

Spoiler

Crayon.

[Udderdude]

Soul vs. Souless for sure.

[Lander]

Man, they didn't even normalize the colors to account for saturation loss due to dot-matrix stipple. Takes it from moody to a mix of Pop Art and that golden / silver age of superheroes comic vibe, where everyone sports a bright block-color costume.

[BIL]

Up too late, reminiscing of old internet friend Pinky The Nutsack-Biting Cat. RIP Pinky you sadistic little fuck. I mean I assume he's dead, he is only a cat after all. Man did he go for that cop's nuts though. To the cop's credit he was a class act too, apologising for his unacceptable language. Just a good show all-around.

Up too late once again. Awful vice, you need sleep bros. But do you know how infernally tricky it is to track down cats named Pinky? :[ I also want to know what became of his co-star, Animal Control Officer Carl Pritchard. I'm hoping it's not some tragic tale, like he lost his right nut. Or his left. Or both! Truly a video I grew up alongside, I always find myself noticing new things over the years.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've realized I really, really hate watching an in-progress book, manga, or TV series. I want it to be completed before I get interested in it because I've had way too many instances of a series starting strong then ending catastrophically badly in a way that makes me think there was no point in bothering at all. The story is everything in these and if it falls apart at the end, it spoils it all and makes the whole story up to that point meaningless. A story that can't wrap up and give a proper ending even if it's not a happy one may as well not get told.

It's not like a videogame either where a bad story can be forgiven in the face of good gameplay. One bad sequel in a game series does not necessarily spoil the series as a whole, because the game itself isn't relying on the story alone, and a bad ending doesn't make the game less fun.